Harbor Hawks fly ahead

Friday

The Cotuit Kettleers might have struck first in Game 5 of The Barnstable Patriot Cup series, but it was the Hyannis Harbor Hawks who swung their way into a 4-2 victory July 14, bringing their lead in the tourney to 3-2 with just one game left to go.

THE FACE OF FRUSTRATION – Cotuit’s Alex Yarbrough (2) frowns at a called strike during an at-bat.

Hyannis takes lead in Cup series

The Cotuit Kettleers might have struck first in Game 5 of The Barnstable Patriot Cup series, but it was the Hyannis Harbor Hawks who swung their way into a 4-2 victory July 14, bringing their lead in the tourney to 3-2 with just one game left to go.

Cotuit’s Kevin Roundtree was the first to cross home plate, coming in on a wild pitch during teammate Patrick Biondi’s turn at bat.

After that, however, the game belonged to Hyannis, who held the Kettleers scoreless through six innings while tallying four runs of their own to claim the win.

Three of Hyannis’ runs came during a big fourth inning for the team, having finally broken through the pitching wall put up by Cotuit’s Kevin Ziomek.

Adam Walker led off the inning with a single to reach first, with John Frost drawing the inning’s first out before Ziomek faltered, walking Justin Gonzalez and Zach Vincej to load the bases.

The Hawks’ first two runs came on a long double from Austin Elkins that allowed Walker and Gonzalez to come home.

An error by Ziomek brought in Vincej for Hyannis’ third run, with Ziomek then relieved by Cotuit’s Cody Stiles, who walked Joey Rickard and Chadd Krist before the inning ended with outs on Elkins and Krist.

With Hyannis now holding a 3-1 lead, the Harbor Hawks pitching lineup went to work, with Scott Firth giving way to Dietrich Enns in the fifth after striking out four, walking six and allowing one run in four hits.

Enns earned the win in his 1.2 innings with one strikeout, one walk, no hits and no runs, being relieved by Matt Flemer, who struck out one and allowed three hits but no runs.

Nick Wittgren earned the save for Hyannis, closing out the game with two strikeouts, one walk, one hit and one run.

Cotuit made a number of defensive changes in the eighth, moving Alex Yarbrough from second to first, Torsten Boss to second from third, and Logan Vick to third, but it wasn’t enough to stop the Hawks from plating one more run.

Vincej opened Hyannis’ half of the inning with a double, followed by outs from Dan Gulbransen and Eric Stamets, but a single from Rickard allowed Vincej to come home for run No. 4.

Boss scored the Kettleers’ second run in the ninth, coming in on a nice triple hit by Deven Marrero, but pitcher Wittgren squashed any chance of a rally when he struck out Michael Yastrzemski to end the game.

The victory puts Hyannis in the lead 3-2 in The Barnstable Patriot Cup series, which concludes July 23 in Cotuit. Should the Kettleers win, bringing the contest to a tie, series tiebreaks will be put into play, beginning with fewest runs allowed, most strikeouts against, and if all else fails, a bat toss between team captains.

So far, Hyannis has allowed 17 hits and Cotuit 22, while Cotuit has 38 strikeouts against Hyannis, and Hyannis 31 against Cotuit.

The final game begins at 5 p.m.

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